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Signers call on Congress to reject any funding deal that will allow a corrupted and abusive Department of Homeland Security to further militarize the border and harm immigrant communities.
WASHINGTON, DC -- More than 200 non-governmental and advocacy organizations sent a letter to congressional leadership today in advance of the December 7th expiration of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget, calling for bold leadership in support of immigrant communities already suffering under the Trump administration’s bloated immigration enforcement apparatus.
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SOUTHERN BORDER -- On a press call today, experts from the four southern border states discussed the post-midterm election effects on the upcoming funding fight for Trump’s plan to further militarize border communities with more border wall, border agents, active-duty troops, and immigration detention beds. Congress has until Dec. 7 to fund the Department of Homeland Security for Fiscal Year 2019, and House Speaker Paul Ryan has promised to have a “fight” about it that could lead to a partial government shutdown. In addition, and surprisingly, the U.S. Department of Defense has been willing to reallocate funds to the construction of border walls and the deployment of active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
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SOUTHERN BORDER -- Today, President Trump resorted to a familiar theme of demonizing families and children seeking safety, threatening to hold them indefinitely in detention, and potentially deploying more troops to southern border communities than are stationed in 160 countries combined.
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Trump wants to win on November 6th by going after poor immigrants striving for a better life.
Washington, DC – Today, news broke that Defense Secretary Mattis is expected to sign a directive that would dispatch 800 or more military troops to the border. *UPDATE 10/29/18: The Pentagon is deploying 5200 troops to the border.
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New video series explores Border Patrol’s decades-old culture of violence, corruption and impunity featuring those who know the agency best: former agents
SOUTHERN BORDER -- Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) launched a new video series called “Breaking the Green Line” featuring Jenn Budd, a former Senior Border Patrol Agent and San Diego Sector Intelligence Officer. Budd left the Border Patrol after witnessing firsthand the corruption and abuse that have been a staple of Border Patrol for several decades.
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SOUTHERN BORDER -- In the second multiple-murder case committed by a Border Patrol agent this year, a U.S. Border Patrol supervisory agent has confessed to killing four women and assaulting a fifth in Webb County, Texas.
Juan David Ortiz, a 10-year veteran of the force, is being held on a $2.5 million bail. Ortiz is the second agent in the Laredo area to be arrested on murder charges this year. This spring, agent Ronald Anthony Burgos-Aviles was charged with killing a woman and her one-year-old child. In May, a Border Patrol agent also shot and killed 20-year-old Claudia Patricia Gómez González in Rio Bravo, Texas.
The Border Patrol’s pattern of death and abuse across the southern border and lack of accountability, oversight and transparency continues to jeopardize the trust and safety of border communities.
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EL PASO, Texas — A report released today examines President Trump’s border wall proposal and the last two decades of border security policies, including the existing 654 miles of border walls, exposing the wide-ranging damages that the militarization of the border and these walls have already inflicted upon border communities.
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SAN DIEGO, CA -- In commemoration of the 55th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s seminal “I Have a Dream” speech, his son, Martin Luther King, III, will visit the San Diego border area to highlight the injustices that migrants, refugees, and border communities face. Mr. King will deliver his remarks next to the border wall.
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SOUTHERN BORDER -- The family of a teenager shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent in one of the most high profile cross-border shootings has new hope for justice following a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that allows them to sue the federal government for damages.
José Antonio Elena Rodriguez was shot 10 times in the back through the border fence by Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Swartz in October of 2012. Elena Rodriguez was walking on the Mexican side. Swartz was charged for the killing, but was found not guilty of second-degree murder in April 2018. He still faces a new trial for manslaughter.
The ruling gives Araceli Rodriguez, the mother of Jose Antonio, standing to sue in U. S. courts.
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